


Navigate Below

by faithsedge



Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, literally just--massages and kisses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-19 06:42:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29870721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithsedge/pseuds/faithsedge
Summary: Rose has a bad day. Nate cheers her up with an after work massage.His eyes flutter shut, hands tracing down her upper arms and down the curve of her elbow. His fingers find her own, but they don’t move her hands away. They rest gently on top of her hands, lightly, as if the touch was almost not there. “There are parts of me that I hesitate to show to most.”She turns her head, and moves her hands, and Nate’s too. Her fingers find the curve underneath his chin and trail upwards, lifting his chin, and his gaze to her. His eyes scan over her, worried, anticipating glances.
Relationships: Detective/Nathaniel "Nate" Sewell, Female Detective/Nathaniel "Nate" Sewell
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Navigate Below

“Bad day?” He asks, trailing his fingers from in her hair to behind her ear, a ghost of a a touch. It makes her shiver.

She gives him a noncommittal grunt.

_Yes. It was a bad day._

_They always are._

_But you,_

_You make it easy._

_And it becomes--it doesn’t become a question of whether or not my day was bad. It doesn’t matter when you are in it._

_You make it--”_ Fine _,”_ She says. “My day was fine.”

He guides her forward with a gentle hand behind her head and places a kiss on the tip of her nose. She immediately flushes, and the sight of it sends Nate in a tizzy. Even after all of this time.

“Can I make it better?” He asks, incessant with the questions, but she doesn’t mind. With him, she never minds. 

She indulges him and sets her work bag down on her beige apartment couch and plops onto it. With ease she kicks off her shoes (keeping on, her mismatched colored socks), and pulls her feet up to sit criss-cross. Patting the cushion next to her she forces a tired smile, and Nate notices the creases of stress on her face. “You are welcome to try,” she sighs. 

“Take off your shirt,” he says, sitting down next to her. She turns to look at him with an eyebrow raised. He chuckles, “Please, and I promise, I won’t do anything past your boundaries.”  
  
The tension in her eases. “I thought perhaps a massage would help.”

“You definitely danced around the subject.” She throws a smirk at him. “Are you playing coy with me?”

His face widens, and with elation, and teasing in his voice he responds, low, and gravelly, “ _I would never_.”

She scoffs, followed by a chuckle, and with his head near, she leans back, lips pressing against his arm, before settling into the corner of his shoulder. “I think you _are_ teasing, Natey.”

He looks down at her, even sitting down he towers over her small stature. “And now _you_ are teasing.” She tilts her head, eyes meeting his glimmering brown. “All’s fair.”

In a reluctant movement she sits up straight and pulls her pink blouse over her head. Blonde curls fall out of place, and stray hairs cover her face. Arms awkwardly cover her body, face flushing. In an instant Nate averts his eyes, “If you would rather--”

She places a hand on his arm. “No, it’s fine, I just--”

He keeps his gaze away from her still, but she whispers, “I still get nervous.”

His eyes flutter shut, hands tracing down her upper arms and down the curve of her elbow. His fingers find her own, but they don’t move her hands away. They rest gently on top of her hands, lightly, as if the touch was almost not there. “There are parts of me that I hesitate to show to most.”

She turns her head, and moves her hands, and Nate’s too. Her fingers find the curve underneath his chin and trail upwards, lifting his chin, and his gaze to her. His eyes scan over her, worried, anticipating glances. 

“If I show you…”

“You can show me.”

“You will see my vulnerability.” The words claw from her throat, a truth spoken like no other she has ever said aloud. That in itself is vulnerability. It gives way like a gateway drug.

He is her gateway drug, enticing to bare skin and claw marks to. And if she starts here, what else will flow from her lips, where will she let his touch explore, does she dare let him get this close to her heart?

And easily, he sees the gears turning in her head, sending her deep into the depths of her mind, exploring every one of her insecurities. “Only if you let me.”

 _Only if you let me_. 

A sentiment lost in her, but found new again. Woken up from a deep slumber in twilight witnessing the birth of the sun, and the death of the moon. She finds it, and she sees it in his eyes, she sees the truth of his words. His earnest, his patience to explore every part of her. He waits when others have rushed. 

And she thinks for a moment, that it is only her body. 

But it isn’t just her body. It is her self, it is her face under the mask, her soul untangled. 

She ponders, what to say and how to feel, but she lets it fall away like a feather dusting away the grime on her skin. “Then, you shall have me.” Her palm cups the side of his face, her thumb running along the tip of his eyebrow. “I bare myself to you, Nathaniel Sewell.”

He smiles in her touch, and he turns her in response to her words. His hands fall upon her shoulders, and make quick work of the tension in her back, and in her neck. Like magic his fingers work deftly--gentle and firm (a touch she has associated only to him, unique to her skin, his touch). 

“I never asked how _your_ day was.” 

He chuckles, and reassures her, leaning forward, lips pressed against her ear. “It started with you. When I saw you”--a kiss to her ear and then--”It has been delightful.”

She rolls her eyes at the entirely-too-cheesy sentiment, but she keeps quiet, focused entirely on the warm feeling spreading like wildfire throughout her bones, and burning pleasantly where his touch lay. 

“What if I made dinner tonight?” He asks thoughtfully. 

“If you keep spoiling me like this, I’m going to get used to it.” She breathes out, and a fond and smile settles deeply on her lips. 

“You say that like it is a bad thing.” It almost astounds him that it could ever be so, and he reassures quickly that it never could.

She bows her head, as much as she can without being an inconvenience to Nate. “Isn’t it?”

He responds almost immediately, knowing the answer as quickly as it gathers on his tongue, “No.” And then he speaks again, clear, and sure, “Not when it is you.”

And--

It is the type of answer most common in these types of moments, a dam, rebuilt and burst several times over. Honesty ebbs and flows from their tongues--a language for the two of them, shared in intimacy, shared in an alcove of home, and the love that spreads--the love that binds.

His eyes fall upon the large patterns of ink on her skin. Skin stained deeply red, elegant roses drawn across her back. A large scar juts through the tattoo. She can feel his eyes burn holes, and she presses her eyes shut, and she hopes--

She hopes he does not ask. 

And he doesn’t, not yet. 

He saves that for another day. Some of her stories, they are not yet ready for spoken word, and he knows, as much as he knows anything, that she will come when ready, if ready. 

Instead, in this moment, 

In this moment he beholds her. Not like art; she isn’t meant to solely make him feel, to gaze upon, but like a poem--tangible, and meant to make you feel all the same, but with words to learn and to hear, and a soul that breaches his core. She reaches in and her lips wrap around his heart and suction the life out of him. Her words cut a hole in his lungs and fill him with her sunset-giving air. 

With her--

With her, he can breathe.

He can breathe. Something he took for granted, but the old air was stale and ridden with grief. She breathes in him new air--his oxygen, and her love that flows through his lungs, and pumps his heart, and supplies his blood with her glimmer. Her shimmer, a rose-colored fluid, coursing through his body. His blood and subsequently every fibre of his being, she sinks into him, she paints him with the colors of the sun. 

Slowly, and deliberately he dips his head, he breathes in her floral perfume, and he holds her like the roses on her back. His finger traces the curves of her spine protruding, and his lips find the delicate of the skin and her bone and he places a lingering kiss. He leans his forehead on her back, and her eyes flutter shut. 

Long moments pass before he sits up again, and he pauses for a moment. When he does, she faces him, worried pinch between her brows. “What is it?”

A chuckle escapes him, and he almost shakes his head. “Do you know how far my love expands?”

The question almost comes from nowhere, but she is used to his questions, and she is used to his poetic antics. 

His hand reaches tentatively above her head, gently splaying fingers through golden blond hair. “From here”--his touch falls and lingers on her shoulders, and down through to her waist--”to here.”

“From every inch of rosy-pink skin,” he whispers, “to here.”

Corners of his lips tug upwards, and his fingers find her chest, open and spread against the skin where he can feel her beating heart. He closes his eyes, “And it deepens; I hope you feel it.”

Her pulse increases, and she thinks the rosy-pink skin he mentioned, is the blush formed on her cheeks, and the cherry-red of her nose. 

But her hand finds itself on top of his, where it lay on her chest. _I feel it, I do._

But she hesitates to speak it into existence. _If I feel it, then what do I do? If I admit it--_

 _If--”_ I feel it.”

_Like a bandaid ripped off; I do._

_I feel you._

Another grin spreads on his lips, and he asks again, “How was your day?”

“You are the worst tease--!”

His grin turns coy. “That is what I am here for.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!! thank you for reading!! i am @nathanielseawell on tumblr!!! <333


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